25 examples of Peyton Manning's insane competitiveness

Adam Hunger/USA Today Sports
On Sunday, Peyton Manning will lead the Denver Broncos in what may be his last shot at winning a second Super Bowl.

Win or lose, Manning will be remembered as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Despite his easygoing persona, Manning reached his level of greatness by being incredibly competitive both on and off the field.

The intense anecdotes below include what he went through to keep playing after neck surgery, his sneaky first-quarterbacks meeting in college, and his crazy work ethic in high school.

His body is so beat up that he has an assistant remove his cleats because "it is a relief to not have to bend over that far," according to Kevin Van Valkenburg. And yet, Manning is still competing at the highest level at 39 and making another run for his elusive second Super Bowl ring.

During Peyton's first-quarterbacks meeting as a freshman at Tennessee, the other quarterbacks were an hour late because Manning locked the doors to the building.

Manning roots for rookie quarterbacks to do poorly so that somebody will break his record for interceptions in a season by a rookie (28).

Prior to a season-finale game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots in 2007, Peyton called his brother Eli to urge the Giants' defense to keep Brady from breaking Peyton's single-season touchdown passes record. The Giants' defense was promised dinner if they succeeded. They did not.

Instead of retiring at 35, Manning chose to relearn how to throw a football after his second neck surgery and even had secret practices so nobody would know how bad his throwing had become.

To prove he could still play after the neck surgeries, he had some then-Colts teammates fly to Duke University and they replayed every play from the 2009 AFC Championship Game win over the New York Jets.

He is a stickler for details. According to his former coach, Tony Dungy, if Peyton says he is going to do something at a specific time, "you can set your satellite by it."

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Despite a friendly personality, he is not afraid to get in the face of a teammate, even Jeff Saturday, one of his good friends — at the 0:40 mark of this video.

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Now in the twilight of his career, Manning has been even more open about his emotion, chewing out teammates in front of everybody.

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During a preseason game, Manning received a taunting penalty and was later fined for getting in the face of an opponent who had put a helmet-to-helmet hit on one of the Denver Broncos' receivers. Manning later called the fine "money well spent."